


Awakening

by Tasceri



Series: Extended Universe [7]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Everyone is Crying A Lot, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 10:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14747400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasceri/pseuds/Tasceri
Summary: An old piece I forgot to port over to Ao3. Ienzo reflects on his ressurection.





	Awakening

It was like stumbling into the midday sunlight after spending a lifetime in Plato’s Cave. The intensity of his emotions _burned_ , intoxicating and unbearable, filling his mind and filling his body and bringing him finally, fiercely, to life, paralysed, half-blind, shaking, tears dripping down his cheeks and splashing on the very same cold tiled floor where he had succumbed to the darkness so long ago. 

_He tastes the soft syllables of his childhood name on his lips:_ Ienzo _. The sound of it is strange and unfamiliar. Elicits a potent mixture of unease and nostalgia in him. His chest aches with grief for the innocence of those bygone days, for the adult Ienzo might have become, for the torture of ten years between existence and nothingness, for the victims of his monstrous other half._

After the first storm of emotion had passed, he began to become aware of the flaxseed hair of the man he had come to call Vexen, draped across the tiles. Coughing or sobbing. It had been so long since he’d heard someone cry that he couldn’t be sure which it was. He had no notion of time, of anything beyond the sphere of his aching muscles, his heaving chest, hot and cold, the irrational urge to reach out to his old caretaker, to comfort, for comfort.

_He still has so few words to describe the emotions he feels. All the literature he read, all the stories he voraciously swallowed as a child, and he cannot come close to expressing the complexity, the colour, the way even the slightest feeling consumes his body. He is so vulnerable. He never knows when his logical façade will disintegrate into laughter, tears, or both._

_Zexion built his identity on illusion, disassociation, control. Being unable to hide even the most simple emotion is terrifying._

They looked at each other, on the floor of that dead, atrophied laboratory. Shock in their eyes, vision blurry, breathing fast. The man who had been Vexen opened his mouth, taking long moments to form words, croaked “My child,” and he could have been seven years old again, wearing a too-big lab coat which slipped off his shoulder and over his fingertips, tugging at Even’s sleeve for attention, wanting affection or ice cream or carrying to bed. The comforting smell of him, acetone and shampoo and coffee and disposable nitrile gloves. He let the man who had been Vexen hold him, cried openly while he stroked his hair and mumbled cracked apologies, both of them shaking, both of them overwhelmed by ten debilitating years of long overdue emotions.

_He’s ambivalent about calling himself Ienzo. Ienzo was a child lost to the darkness, too young to understand what he was doing, too eager for knowledge to be denied by his surrogate parents. Yet he understands all too well the others’ desire to distance themselves from their former selves. From all of the crimes they committed._

The man who had been Vexen, his eyes tired, looking older than his years, pressed his cold hands to his heir’s cheeks, both of them shaking, unable to comprehend their existence, the sensation of being alive, of being _whole_ , of feeling so clearly the rhythmic beat of their hearts beneath their skin. He whispered, his voice strange with open emotion, wonder, pain, so many things expressed in a single word: “Ienzo.”

Ienzo, Zexion, a new being who had never existed before, let out a sob. Even held him close, kissed his forehead in reverent, joyful remorse. He said, voice becoming clearer as he adjusted to the intensity of the feelings, to their unexpected awakening in this soulless place, “It worked, then? We fulfilled our objective?”

“I don’t know,” Ienzo admitted. “After Castle Oblivion… I don’t know.” Another wave of emotions, these darker, engulfed him. He recalled so intently the pain, the brutal _fear_ ; his hands were at his own throat before he knew he had moved, his chest feeling constricted as if he were still experiencing that agonising asphyxiation. He forced himself to breathe, to focus on his beating heart, the dingy light in the laboratory, his cold fingertips.

“You too?” Even choked out, looking as though he were the one facing imminent demise. His skin was grey, even beneath the flickering strip lights. “M-Marluxia?” He could barely say the name, loaded as it was with fear and loathing.

“No, he was defeated by Sora…” Ienzo squeezed his eyes shut, trying to recall the confusing series of events which had led to their downfall without crippling himself with emotions again. “Axel… He betrayed him…. He betrayed us all…” He was not oblivious to Even’s shudder of horror at the mention of the fire wielder. He coughed again, forced himself to his feet, helped Even stand. “The others must be nearby. We must find them.” They looked at each other, both thinking of the same silent hero.

“Did he…?”

Ienzo shook his head, fighting back tears. So unaccustomed to having emotions that he could barely control them. Watching, helpless and detached, through the intercom system, his guardian brought down by the keyblade bearer’s darker shadow. So soon after the demise of Vexen. Feeling nothing but hollow as the men who had raised him were slaughtered.

They moved slowly, their leather coats suffocating, Even holding onto Ienzo for support. So fragile. A breath of wind could have knocked them down.

“They must have persevered without us,” Even was saying, his voice a touch breathless, perhaps finding stability in his hypotheses. “But I don’t understand… I thought I- we-”

“We should have ceased to exist,” Ienzo finished. His own voice sounded strange to him, as though someone else was speaking through his mouth, someone who lacked his dry, practised tone, someone who betrayed the fear and relief he was feeling inside. They leaned on each other. Made their way to the higher levels of the castle, approaching the entrance, almost bursting with the unspeakable hope that their former companion would be returning to consciousness as they had a if he had simply taken a poorly timed nap while guarding the iron gates.

_Ienzo is still at the mercy of his emotions. The others, they can hide the power of their hearts, but Ienzo was too young, learned deception too late, and still he cannot prevent himself from crying when he recalls the agony of losing his heart, his family… It catches up with him at unexpected moments: cracking the spine of a new book and remembering how his stomach churned the first time he opened a book and felt nothing of the former pleasure it used to bring him; leaving the house for the first time in a few days and breathing the fresh, complex outdoor air as if nothing else could be so wonderfully refreshing; striking a match and seeing as if he is still there the burning body of his mentor, dissolving into the darkness, into nothingness._

They saw him at the end of a dusty corridor, picking his way through the debris, his large body moving delicately as though injured. He was coming to look for them. Ienzo felt another stab of emotion, complex, indescribable; pain, joy, relief, regret all in the same heartbeat.

“Aeleus!” Even cried out, and the great man looked up, a wide smile opening across his face, eyes full of gladness, a breath of something Ienzo couldn’t catch tumbling from his mouth. He hurried towards them, Ienzo leaving Even behind, finding the strength and control to stagger forward, needing to confirm that the presence of his guardian was no cruel illusion. Lifted from his feet, crying again, heart grounded and raised by the man who had been Lexaeus, who had guarded and watched over him even when their world crumbled, whose loyalty never wavered, not even in the final moments when defeat and death claimed him.

“Ienzo,” he murmured, then embracing the second figure to reach him, “Even. You’re alive.”

“Have you seen the others?” Even asked urgently, “Did the Organisation succeed?” But Aeleus shook his head; he didn’t know either. His eyes were red and puffy as well; he kept glancing at Ienzo as if to check that he was still there. Ienzo understood the disbelief; after all, he was the one who had seen both of his companions perish.

They left the castle, the sun outside shining with hope and air warm. Even was the first to peel away his black cloak, shrugging it off with an expression of pure relief. They sat on the steps together, Ienzo in the middle, taking in the sparkling beauty of Radiant Garden. The fractured spires of the castle rose behind them, exposed copper gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Even began to cry again. “We’re home,” he said, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, “We’re home.”

_The darkness follows them: Ienzo knows that. The murderous dreams. A flicker of some other conscience in the mirror, a sinister shadow, the quick rage and ready distrust. The fear, of fire, of marble halls, of the full moon and things that move in the corner of his vision. Sometimes the world is too bright, the overwhelming emotions too much for Ienzo to bear and he lies beneath his sheets for days, room dark, body still. Aeleus brings him water. Knows better than to disturb him._

_Ienzo, Zexion. Who is he under the covers? When he isn’t laughing at one of Even’s terrible jokes or beset by the glorious taste of Aeleus’ freshly baked muffins, falling into a wonderful book or falling asleep in some dry literature when he should be in bed. When he dreams of illusions, manipulation, control, lies. He doesn’t know. He wonders if any of them do._


End file.
